Covid now a pandemic of poor nations, WHO envoy tells UK MPs

Covid is now the pandemic of poor countries, a leading global expert has told a cross-party group of lawmakers, adding that governments trying to get out of the pandemic are taking a huge risk.

Dr. David Nabarro, World Health The organization’s special envoy on COVID told the all-party group on the coronavirus that the world is still in the grip of the pandemic, with 5,413 deaths in the last 24 hours alone. “It is now basically a disease of poor people and poor countries,” he said.

Without mentioning the UK by name, Nabarro said that wealthy countries that were attempting to “vaccinate the population from an active pandemic” were taking a big gamble, adding that a concern was the rise of new variants that Current vaccines may be avoided, while another was that the population may be reluctant to comply if measures such as wearing masks and social distancing are reimposed.

“If there is a glut of vaccines for boosters, it will have global consequences that are really quite extreme, and that’s what everyone needs to know,” he said.

according to official figuresIn the UK, more than 22% of people 12 years of age or older have received a booster dose, while an estimated 68.6% have received their jaw at least twice.

In contrast, in Africa just 6% The WHO said people were fully vaccinated by the end of October. According to the data of our world in the data, some African countries have even lower levels – in Nigeria the figure is only 2.8%.

Speaking at a meeting of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Coronavirus (APPG) on Tuesday, Anna Marriott, Oxfam’s health policy adviser and the People’s Vaccine Alliance’s policy adviser, said the situation was dire. “If we look at the low-income countries as a whole, the shocking thing is that less than 1% of the total vaccine supply has been given to the poorest countries, many of which are in the country. Africa,” He said.

“Pharmaceutical corporations have prioritized developing countries, including on the continent of Africa,” he said, adding that this includes prioritizing vaccine-sharing schemes such as Covax and efforts on the part of the African Union to purchase the vaccine. “Rich countries have pushed themselves to the forefront of the vaccine line by voluntarily paying higher than required prices,” she said.

Ayode Alkija, co-chair of the African Union Africa Vaccine Delivery Alliance for COVID-19, said it was important to waive the COVID vaccine patent to allow countries to make their own doses. “Transfer of technology should be made mandatory. These vaccines are a public global good; It should be mandatory for those companies and there should be absolutely no talk of losing their profits in the pandemic, it is inhuman, it is unethical. And frankly, it’s also quite stupid,” she said.

One problem raised by experts, including UNICEF’s director of supplies department Eva Kadilli, was that some vaccines donated by wealthy countries had short expiration dates. This put enormous pressure on health care systems, which had to scramble to use them on time, while the varying storage requirement of jabs meant there could be logistics problems if vaccines arrived on time.

Dr Nikais Ndembi, chief science adviser at Africa CDC (Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention), said that around 700,000 vaccines have expired, adding that this could increase vaccine hesitation. “If people know we’re destroying vaccines, they’re sure something is wrong,” he said.